Remnant Besieged
by WhyTryHarder56
Summary: -Discontinued- Story of a Renegade Terror Squad.
1. Chapter 1

_If my time in the Black Library taught me anything it was - rather controversially - that Chaos is already very much part of us. It deals in the currency of mortal souls and feeds off states and emotions that are in essence natural. Without us there would be no Chaos. Good and evil? Right and wrong? These are binary oppositions that the inhabitants of this galaxy use to comfort and define themselves. I'm afraid much of the God-Emperor's work is done in the grey area in between._

 _-High Inquisitor Bronislaw Czecak, Ordo Xenos_

I stared into the twin wells of inky black that sat across from me. I stared and lost my self in the infinite possibilities of what was to happen in the upcoming minutes, hours, days, and potentially weeks or years. What would happen to the unscarred world below me? What would happen to me and my brothers?

I was jolted from my reverie by the turbulence outside of my squad's valkyrie. I came back to the present and focused on the two mesmerizing pools of black that had previously held my attention; actually a gas mask belonging to the brother sitting opposite of me. The mask was set in the grim visage of a predator of the warp, disconcertingly familiar and yet bizarrely foreign at the same time.

It was enough to make me look away to prevent a headache. One would think that after years of service to the Dark Gods, their presence and blessings would become more... bearable. It was rather hit or miss.

Again, I was brought to the present, but this time from our pilot. I had yet to actually see the man, even after we embarked on our valkyrie. We left our stationed vessel _The Twisted Path_ without a single sighting of the man and began towards the atmosphere.

I had a sneaking suspicion that our pilot, like many others pilots and drivers that served the True Gods, had fused with his ship in a dark symbiosis of man and machine. It was one of the few things the Dark Mechanicus were actually pleased with. Even so, for meat shields like myself and my squad that had served the Ruinous Powers for years and decades even, it was concerning.

"Final checks!" He half shouted over the engines and through the intercom. "We drop in three!" His voice seemed to echo through the intercom, something sinister and filled with malice in every crack and pop of static.

With those few words, the crew compartment fell back into the deafening silence of the engines. Shuffling and grunting commenced as grav-chutes were secured and straps tightened. Nobody wanted to end up a as a stain on the forest floor.

After what seemed like seconds, the pilot notified us that our time was up and that we would, in fact, be jumping out of a perfectly functional aircraft in mid flight. One of my squad mates, Akkro, hauled open the side door of the valkyrie. Immediately, howling winds assaulted us and filled the interior of the transport. Beyond that lay a vibrant red forest muted by the night. Even further in the distance lay our target, the city of Vale.

My squad and I had been assigned, along with some others, to be the vanguard for the Blood Hand's invasion. He used to be a general in the Imperial Guard before he had sold himself to Chaos. Now he led an army of millions strong, backed by a fleet of ships and support. We were to be the "shock" of his shock and awe. It would be our squad and a few others attacking locations with high civilian densities. It was terror tactics and I rather liked the plan.

No amount of soothing words from a government or leader could replace the sense of safety and security that such an attack would strip away from the population.

It had been an honor to accept the graciously offered position in the assault, as we would be some of the first to spill blood in this blessed conquest. Of course, denying the position would have also meant our immediate execution, so it was really a win-win situation.

My squad leader, a man by the name of Maethus, interrupted my thoughts. He gave off the perpetual impression that you had shot his dog and spit in his food. He kept his head during battle, though. Mostly at least. I had seen him fight an Imperial Guard officer and win by throwing a severed arm at the man before beating him to death with said arm. It was his arm.

"You sad bastards ready?" He shouted over the noise. I vaguely heard Akkro say "No, but frack it, lets do it anyways", in the background.

Let it never be said that fanatical cultists lack humor. It was a strange thing about my squad mates. Besides slaughtering innocents, manipulating, and partaking in vile, debased acts, they were all rather decent people and acted rather civilized, at least when in the presence of other squad mates.

It was the gibbering masses of traitors, deserters, and slaves you had to worry about, honestly. One second you're enjoying your tasteless rations while having a nice talk with one of your pals and the next, some poor son of a bitch's mind snapped like a twig and there's a kitchen utensil buried in your neck.

No amount of combat training prepares you for that when you've got your guard down. It does, however, make for a phenomenal learning experience.

Back in the valkyrie and away from my inner monologues, Maethus was met with a chorus of "Aye"'s and grunts. He nodded and signaled the beginning of the drop.

Seconds after, he took a lazy step out the side door of the valkyrie and simply disappeared from sight. This continued down the squad line, with me towards the rear.

Once I finally reached the door, I quickly took a deep breath and steeled my nerves. I offered up a few words to the Changer of Ways to guide my fate and took my step forward in weightlessness and pitch black. Once more unto the breach, I suppose?

The night air was rather nice, actually. Falling at terminal velocity provided a nice cool down from the stuffy interior of the valkyrie. Who would have thought?

I could vaguely see the outlines of my squad mates as we plummeted towards the ground. I got a rather peaceful view of the city we were about to terrorize. The nightlife of the city seemed to be thriving if the amount of light coming from the streets and buildings was anything to go by. I was contented to know that it would be a blazing inferno on the horizon in time to come.

I looked down at the fast approaching ground. That, on the other hand, I was not so happy with. The problem, or maybe the benefit, with using grav-chutes was that you didn't know if it actually did it's job until you were seconds from the ground. Those few seconds give a man a lot of time to think.

I tried to remember how I had even come to this point in my life. I remembered my days when I was still a fool, cowed by the prattle that the Imperials fed all of their slaves. I remembered my reformation as one who had thrown off the shackles of the False Emperor and found truth in the Tetrarchy. I remembered my first, painful years as an apologetic trying to prove myself. I remembered when I had been honored with the opportunity to become a stormtrooper in the Blood Hand's armies. Most of the memories in between were muted at best or completely gone at worst. None of those mattered though. Only my service to the God of Change and his kin mattered now.

Just then, it seemed my grav-chute decided to work. I half gasped, half choked as the straps bit into my shoulders and chest, undoubtably leaving bruises or lacerations. I semi-bobbed in the air before my grav-chute gave out and dropped me entirely. There was a brief moment of weightlessness before gravity kicked in again.

This free fall was completely different from the previous one. There was no cushion at the bottom besides the forest floor and the vegetation. 15 meters in the air was plenty enough to kill me, even if I landed correctly. The first 5 meters were clear of any obstacles, but my feet hit the top of the forest canopy in the next second. Halfway into falling to my potential death/serious disfigurement, my descent came to a tumbling stop in the thick tree branches.

I had come to a stop with my body oriented upwards towards the sky. I saw some of the squads in other valkyries dropping still. One of the soldiers in particular seemed to be headed straight for my comfortable little tree house. As he came closer I was relieved to note that he stopped at about the same height I had, and was a good 10 meters or so away from me. However, it seemed his straps had not been done correctly or his grav-chute hadn't been calibrated correctly, as I heard the crunch from his stop. Without any input to the grav-chute, it simply hovered for a few seconds like some huge, grotesque insect before giving out and dropping the corpse into the forest bellow.

Well then. If I wasn't thankful for my gear and those damned tech-priests, I was now.

Well, this is a product of me having to much spare time and being a 40k fanboy, so what else could you expect? I apologize for fluff/lore mistakes before hand and sorry for any formating issues etc. as this is my first time writing fiction in general and my first time using Fanfiction Net's tools. If you guys have any suggestions/ ideas/ questions please shoot me a PM. Also, as I have very real problems with motivation this may be the only chapter or one of many.

Thanks broskis!

WhyTryHarder56

A.N.- So I just realised how many typos there were and I'm not all that surprised. I'm currently down a computer at the moment and I'm doing this all in Inotes on my phone so, sorry for the inconvenience.


	2. Chapter 2

As pretty as the night sky was, I needed to get moving. I unhitched a knife from its sheath across my chest and began the careful work of cutting my way through the dense forest canopy. It seemed most of the work had been done for me by the fall, placing me a good ways into the branches and leaves already. I could see the ground through some of the less dense patches of limbs.

Considering what I saw, I still had a fatal fall ahead of me. I needed to find away down that wouldn't shatter my legs, preferably. It seemed that none of the tree trunks were remotely close to me. I was surprised that I hadn't punched right through the branches. Considering I didn't know were my squad mates were, and I didn't want to compromise radio silence or attract others in shouting distance, it looked like I'd have to risk it.

I shimmied my way through the last of the branches and swung down, still holding on to the limbs above me. I looked down at the large drop and sighed. Though it was dark and I had a difficult time seeing the forest floor, it was certainly the height of a small hab-building. This would hurt.

It at least seemed that the gravity here was at least a little lighter than most other places that we had been deployed. The agri-world I had been raised on had a higher level of gravity compared to this planet's, though not by much. Hopefully that would help out some.

I let go and for the third time that night found myself in free fall. On the way down it struck me that the grav-chute may have been my way out of the problem. It was already decided, unfortunately. My feet hit and the rest of my weight settled into them. Thankfully, I had landed on an even surface. That didn't stop the searing pain that shot up my right leg, however.

The pain was so intense that I saw stars. I shifted my weight to my hands and my other leg. I gasped and held my breath, trying to will away the pain. I slowly exhaled to try to calm myself down.

Something was definitely wrong with my leg now. At the best, it was probably a sprain or something similar. At worst, I shattered a couple of bones in my leg. I tried to put some pressure on the leg and groaned. That could be a problem. I tried the range of movement on my leg and found that it was mostly alright. I was no medic, but it seemed as thought nothing was broken, or if it was, it could wait.

After passing through the near blinding pain and fun of dropping over two stories onto packed dirt, I looked at my surroundings. The forest looked to be composed large , full trees with orange or red leaves. It was difficult to tell in the little moonlight that broke through the layer of limbs and leaves above me.

I finally stood to full height and hobbled about for a second. It seemed things were already clearing up a tad, so that was good news. Bad news was, I didn't know where I was or where my squad mates were.

Thankfully, I was spared the trouble of having to find friendly forces at night and in the middle of the forest. There was a rustle in the foliage to my left and out came a renegade guardsman. I couldn't discern any details about his uniform besides the fact that he held a beaten and ragged melta gun in his hands.

We both froze. Neither of us wore masks and could see the other's expression of surprise. Out of habit I gave the challenge that was commonly used by most of the soldiers in service to the Blood Hand.

"Star." I directed at the man. He kept his melta gun up and quirked his head slightly. "Star!" I repeated, this time louder.

"Eight." The other man replied. He frowned slightly and his voice was just as broken as his weapon. He looked young too. We both immediately relaxed visibly. Though it was terribly unlikely that he would not have been another sympathizer to chaos, paranoia drove us fanatics to act sometimes. Now that we weren't about to shoot each other, we exchanged brief formalities. I introduced myself, afterwards he introduced himself as Lanton Dahl, hailing from the Blood Hand's 12th, a combat engineering division.

Soldiers out of the 12th would either be assigned or requested for deployment by other companies for the purposes of the mission. They often worked closely with the mystery shrouded Dark Mechanicus. He would, of course, be working more with demolitions than actually building anything.

I introduced my self as a rifleman out of the 4th company, comprised of the Blood Hand's elite stormtroopers. He seemed slightly taken aback that I was in the 4th but it didn't seem to phase him too much.

Orders from before the drop told us to head east to reach our destination. Hopefully others would be found on the way there. There would likely be groups of stragglers coming in till the break of day. After everything was accounted for, squads would mobilize and continue into the city.

After confirming that we were headed in the right direction, the both of us set off. Neither of us spoke. It wasn't unusual for guys from other units to never interact with each other, unless in competition or outright hostility. Contrary to popular belief, us "heretics" were actually a pretty tight-knit group. Of course, the in-fighting caused by these groups was not especially productive or helpful.

As we continued walking and getting closer to our objective, Lanton and I stopped. "Do you hear that?" He asked. I listened closely and strained my hearing. Behind the ambient noise of the leaves swaying in the night air and the nocturnal insects chirping, I could vaguely hear what sounded like... las-fire. We looked at each other and nodded before double timing it in the direction which we heard the las shots coming from.

As we neared, the sounds of a fight became stronger. In probably the least safe and tactical way, we burst through a tree line into a wide open field to see las fire stitching across the darkness. Unfamiliar and beast-like shapes moved through the darkness in between the flashes of light. The rush of adrenaline and the overwhelming outside stimuli of the fight was not particularly pleasing. I was no slaaneshi cultist.

Large beasts, bigger than any man present, hunted in the shadows. Only flashes of white and red and vague movement in the dark gave away their presence. Both myself and Lanton immediately set to help our allies. I began to pick targets in the field and carefully started the work of killing indistinct shapes in the dark, surrounded by friendly soldiers. A less disciplined unit may have fallen into disarray, but our trigger discipline was perfect. Not a single man had fallen to friendly fire within the confusing fight.

That was not to say that no one had fallen to the beasts. They quite reminded me of the ravenous tyranids, though perhaps the tyranids were more organized and numerous. They did share a similarity in their unthinking brutality and viciousness, however.

I saw one of the creatures bat a soldiers las-gun from his hands before pouncing on him. The creature pressed a huge paw into the man's chest, keeping him pinned. It seemed to ignore his vitals and went straight for the man's belly, easily ripping flesh and organs with its teeth. Almost immediately after the creature disemboweled the man it was enveloped in a painfully bright flash. The image of the man's innards strewn about the forest floor was briefly etched into retinas.

After my eyes cleared a second later, the spot where the creature and suffering soldier had been was now a blacked patch of earth with little to suggest that anything had been there previously. Next to it stood Lanton, his face a mask of grim determination and suppressed anger.

The fight continued for a minute or two before things finally started to settle down. It seemed that quite a few of the creatures had been killed. At least 10 men had been slaughtered by the beasts, with some injured.

For dropping onto a planet with little to no intelligence on the local wildlife and civilizations, I'd say things were going rather well.

-Remnant Besieged-

Hey guys. For those of you following this train wreck,I know, 3-4 months for 1.5k words? Pretty awful right? Thank overlord62 for following me and getting me off of my fat ass. Thanks to the guys that are following me and my story. I'm writing this thing for you guys, so if you have any corrections, suggestions, or comments, please send them my way.

And for future reference, I will be trying to upload much more frequently, but chapters of about 2-3k words. Thanks again, and may the Imperium stagnate and rot.

-Whytryharder56


	3. Chapter 3

_The Imperium is a weak old man, ready and waiting to be broken apart by his vengeful sons. -Lugft Huron, Tyrant of Badab_

Things honestly felt pretty awful at the moment. It was still a couple of kilometers until we reached the designated meeting point for the drop, the injured were slowing us down, and it was still dark as the Warp. From the looks of things, the dark wouldn't last long, which urged us on even faster. The last thing we needed was to be spotted by any local defense forces.

Unfortunately, some of the wounded had to be put down, as their wounds were too grievous to warrant the use of our medical supplies. Many think of us cultists as merciless killing machines that praise dark gods and, for the most part, those people would be right. However, leaving one's own to bleed out for no good reason other than to watch them suffer is just a waste of everyone's time. If imperial renegades are anything, we're practical.

The group of men that Lanton and I had stumbled across ended up being roughly 20 men after casualties. We marched through the forest in a loose patrol line, though I still hiked close to Lanton. I was again struck by the intense coloring of the trees around me, even in the dark of what was most likely early morning. Most likely.

That had been an interesting development in the invasion process. Usually, some amount of time would be dedicated to gathering intelligence on the planet, but the Blood Hand had made a gamble to send in troops immediately upon the return of scans of the planet surface. The only reason I knew so much is because of my place in the Blood Hand's 4th company.

Retrospection and nature only held my attention so long though, and I attempted to strike up a conversation with Lanton. "Where else have you served?" Not exactly the best way to engage an intellectually stimulating conversation, but it's a start to be sure.

Lanton seemed slightly surprised that I'd actually started talking to him, or that's what I gathered from the look on his face. It's not like everyone here was a backstabbing, homicidal maniac right? He regained his composure in record time. "I was on Aeolia not too long ago." He replied.

That wasn't half bad for combat experience if my memory served me correctly. That had been a minor campaign against outlying Imperial forces. From what I had heard, it had been a brutally quick operation that ended in a somewhat Pyrrhic victory. In the grander scheme of things, it had opened up more options for the Blood Hand's forces, who had ended up here.

"I wasn't part of the 12th back then either." He started. At least he found the talk decent enough to continue. "I was still part of the Host." Ah, that was the main force of the Blood Hand's human forces. Where the 4th was like a scalpel, the Host was like an ocean, overwhelming enemies in sheer force of numbers. Lanton was lucky he had been pulled out of that meat grinder. Usually the Host ended up being something akin to a speed bump for particularly nasty situations and a buffer against difficult defense emplacements.

I decided I ought to reply. "I heard the fighting there was particularly brutal, how did your unit fare?" With out missing a beat and a cold nonchalance that made me smile a little, he told me, "Not very well. Most of the group was wiped out in a single skirmish. After that, I got handed this," he held out his melta gun, which had the vague impression of a removed and defiled Imperial Aquila, "and was told not to frack it up."

"After we left the planet, no one really cared enough to take the thing from me; it was salvaged anyways." After that we traded a few stories to pass the time and eat up the distance. From what I had heard and seen, Lanton, though still green around the edges, had a pretty level head. I kinda hoped that he wouldn't wander off and get shot.

-Remnant Besieged-

Time passed quickly as Lanton and I exchanged our literal war stories and soon enough we were out of the forest.

The view reminded me of the pict views of paradise worlds I had seen beforehand. Lain out before me was a sprawling metropolis, but not in the traditional Imperial sense of the word. Streets and silver towers with the neon glow of a vibrant night life stuck out on the slowly brightening horizon. I doubt it could have held more than several million people. I might have been moved by the sight had not a mental picture of the same city popped into my mind; the same but covered in fires instead of neon glows and scattered with towers of inky smoke instead of silver. The image made me smile slightly. Though I had always thought about the benefits of settling down and starting a family, there really was no way for me to do that now. I'll be a soldier till I die, no matter what side I'm on.

We had come out on a small, barren hill which couldn't be more than half a kilometer away from the rendezvous point. In fact, Lanton and I could see the other groups of dark shapes that must have been more airborne infantry migrating to the meeting point. We continued towards our destination.

As we moved closer, indistinct shapes in the darkness became other men clad in dark dusters, all clutching weapons and masks of different sorts. With the lack of information on the local conditions, units had been forced to prepare for anything. There was a myriad of support weapons, ranging from heavy stubbers and flame throwers to plasma guns and the non-distinct tubes of mortar emplacements. The masks were something of a different matter. Many were purely cosmetic, fashioned into grisly visages to frighten and demoralize, while others were made to protect the wearer from chemical attacks and shrapnel. Quite a few shared practicality and aesthetics. Looks were certainly deceiving, as what looked like a rag-tag company of deserters, was actually a well-trained and experienced fighting force. We had been underestimated before.

As we came closer we began to move through a mass of men surrounding a spot secluded in the trees. I forced my way through the crowd that had formed to try and see what was going on. Getting a couple of dirty looks from others as I shoved my way through people, I settled for being a bit back from the inside of the formed circle. When I looked closer I thought I saw a familiar flash of metal... son of a bitch! It was squad leader Maethus. His prosthetic arm had caught my eye.

He was in what looked like a war council of some sort. He and a few other squad leaders stood around a log with a map spread over the top. As I was finally able to find a good window between the shoulders of the guys I front of me, the small council looked like they came to some sort of conclusion and began to disband. I caught Maethus' attention as he walked away from the meeting while folding a paper into one of his coat pockets. As he recognized me he gave a strange sort of half nod, half grunt to acknowledge me. "Sir." I offered.

"Good to see you with us. I was half afraid the Warp had taken you." I cracked a small smile at that. Maethus was a good NCO and looked out for us. Most of us weren't particularly enthused about dying and he understood that. "What's the situation, sir?" I asked.

He began to explain, "The gist of it is that we'll be going in with another squad and targeting areas with high densities of civilians: transportation hubs, entertainment centers, anything like that." I nodded as he talked.

"The plan is to draw out local law enforcement and defense forces and to eliminate them. The more collateral damage, the better. After that, we do what ever we want. "

It made sense. There would be many groups of 15 or so renegades attacking civilian crowds and baiting their defenses. Afterwards, we had essentially been given the go ahead to cause as much damage as possible to disorient any responses. Similar operations would be happening at all of the plant's other major cities that had been identified before the drop.

I walked with Maethus as he worked his way through the milling renegades towards the squad. The tension and excitement in the air was palpable. Most of us enjoyed a good civilian massacre every now and then. Men all over the place were spreading news of the operation and making gear checks. When we finally came to the squad, sitting off to the side on some fallen trees, I noticed something was a bit off. Someone was missing. I checked exposed faces and the equipment that would distinguish those that hid their own.

"Akkro?" I asked, more directed at Maethus. He simply shook his head and answered, "Wildlife." I nodded my head plainly. So the mysterious night creatures had taken him. I looked over the rest of the squad. A few smoked Lho sticks, others checked their rifles, one of them cleaned his nails with a small knife. We didn't exactly look like the best, but time and victories had proven otherwise. I hoped our luck would hold.

We also met our accompanying squad, which just so happened to contain one Lanton Dahl. The coincidence made me a bit cautious, but I was sure there was some sort of fate involved. Maybe the Changer of Ways had passed his gaze over me? I was too steeped in the teachings of Tzeentch to pass it off as simple chance. The thought only made me more apprehensive.

-Remnant Besieged-

Hey guys, to start out, sorry for any discrepancies in format. Also, I'm trying to make sure what little conversation there is feels a little more lively. Other than that, I'm going to try and get a chapter out at least every other week or so. If it takes any longer than that, it means classes are kicking my ass or I'm just being lazy. Comments, suggestions, and criticism is welcome. Thanks. Where do you want our MC to go on a killing spree?

WhyTryHarder56


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